u/Yunofascar

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I've been playing video games at least twice daily, and also showering and crafting, and I STILL have only been able to recruit one party member (Hellen). Yet, I resolved to save Jeanne without killing the central body, anyway.

With strategic use of Hellen's cleaver to use special ability "Cleave," a Fingernail Bomb from the Cassette Guy, and Hellen's Massacre, I finally stomped through the mob.

I give Jeanne the laundry basket the next day and she has a laughing fit.

I wasn't expecting myself to feel too attached to Jeanne when I first saw her in her trenchcoat sprite. But her personality really sticks to me. A shame that she likely won't be able to join my party. But it's worth it just to see her... many-toothed, many-eyed smile.

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Got deemed an excellent playmate on my first try, and... I want to cry.

I heard great things about this game and I'm seeing them be proven true, so far. Excited to play more!

I've not even finished a full playthrough of this game, yet, but there's so much attention to detail. When I'd heard that this was funded on kickstarter, I was expecting something simpler, but it's a genuine, honest-to-god, fully fleshed-out JRPG.

I think what gets me most is just the amount of voice acting in this game, and how spectacular most of it is. Seriously, all 100+ of these recruits have voice lines for the card games, for the cooking battles, for actual battles, and even random interjections if you just-so-happen to have them in your party during certain cut-scenes. It's amazing!

Is the game perfect? Hell no it isn't. There are definitely places with awkwardly cut corners that aren't hard to bump into. For example, only Nowa has a dedicated running animation, so certain "run away!" cut-scenes, such as early on when discovering the imperial plans to invade Eltisweiss in... Altverden, I think? They look quite goofy. There's also the entirety of the Beigoma minigame, which is a lot like Pocket Circuit in Yakuza 0: Get better stats or eat dirt, no two ways about it. Lastly, while there ARE 100+ characters to recruit, a few of them do feel a wee bit flat: My prime examples for early on are Francesca (her whole, sweet-looking-healer-girl-with-a-surprisingly-foul-mouth shtick is played so completely straight it's hard to take seriously) and Yume (the moment I talked to her grandmother I immediately predicted that the monster she was seen with would be her friend, it was not hard to see coming).

Yet at the same time there's so much LOVE and CARE put into this game, you can really tell the developers cared when writing this story and its characters, and so much can be discovered with the fortune-tellings. Details like Ymir adopting Sumire, or Gocteau actually having had to leave his family behind to survive and not just being a money-grubbing fleecer, or Gieran wanting to be a great sorcerer but struggling to meet his own expectations due to lacking an intrinsic talent in the art... then you have plot points, like the whole Hishahn Arc genuinely getting me to feel sympathy for the pampered boy-King Euma and his resolve being to trust his advisors rather than magically become the perfect king, or the fact that the wars always feel so tooth-and-nail and you get to hear the people in the world around you lament the tragedy of needless death yet resolving to march forward anyway... it all feels so AUTHENTIC.

I bought this game because I heard it had the blood of Suikoden in it. The only Suikoden game I'd ever played was Suikoden IV; I've played it like, three or four times. And as I understand it, it's a bit of a dark horse in its franchise. While I wasn't a fan of its admittedly very shallow combat mechanics, what gripped me most about Suikoden IV was its surprisingly gripping story. I... LOVED the characters and narrative of Suikoden IV. Something about it, man, scene-for-scene, line-for-line, it all just tickles me in just the right ways. And Eiyuden Chronicles has so much of that. So much of that humanity, that compassion, that authenticity. And it does even better by having a strong foundation for its gameplay mechanics, so much so that even if there are some duds with characters or minigames, the whole thing will never fall apart completely because it always has that amazing foundation to return to. I actually WANT to change around my party and experiment with different playstyles (something which Suikoden IV failed immensely at getting me to try).

I cannot wait to play more of this game. Shi'arc Race soon!

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I know the judges are randomized from your recruits, but come on. Doesn't this lineup feel way too appropriate for a guy coming in calling himself the "Gross-out Chef"?

Had a fun day at the Pride Parade, but when I get home, I find that I can't find my phone anywhere! Fortunately I have a backup so I can survive without it for a few days, but I'd really prefer to get it back as soon as possible.

I'm retracing my steps with my friends but I know I had it when I went to Steelhouse to see the Drag Show (we were present between 5pm-6pm on the night of July 18th).

If you somehow know of anything about a missing or discovered Samsung Galaxy S22, please get in contact with me. The lockscreen should be a neon-lights display of an anime character, orange if it's daytime or white if it's after 10 PM.

In the meantime I'm going to be double checking to see if I left it behind somewhere closer to home.